globe
William Bonner does not intend to stay with JN until 2025
Host and editorinchief of Jornal Nacional, journalist William Bonner, would have sought the general direction of journalism at TV Globo and recently announced that he does not intend to fulfill the contract, renewed in August 2021, until 2025. According to sources from this columnist, who is going through the channel’s director contracts, Bonner would have reported that he was planning his departure from the House’s main news program after covering the presidential election and the first few months after the elected government began.
The column heard about the move from more than one source on the station. Another source belonging to the channel’s board of directors also confirmed the information and reiterated that the journalist’s intention is to leave the network between April and August 2023. The information comes from the same source as this columnist, who reported a year in advance that Faustão and Tiago Leifert would leave the station, as would Fátima Bernardes leave the Encontro. The three cases were reported exclusively by the column a year before they were officially confirmed. Globo denied all movements for a while, until a few months later, when it confirmed everything through official communiqués.
It is not the first time that Bonner has come to the network’s leadership to express interest in his departure from the network. The journalist has already been persuaded three times to renew his contract following the same announcements. In 2021, Jornal Nacional’s anchor ended 35 years of work at the station, 25 years of which were entirely devoted to Jornal Nacional.
The penultimate time, when Bonner renewed his contract after expressing interest in completing his cycle at JN for a second time, Globo managed to keep the presenter in the house and doubled his salary from R$450,000 to R$800,000 In addition to the management, there are some perks for journalists. Bonner was given leave at the time for periods of fatigue at the train station, a reduction in the working day to up to 12 hours a day in the role he also serves as JN’s editorinchief, in addition to a weekly day off between Monday and Friday and annual leave that can be up to two months a year.
When negotiating his penultimate extension, Bonner also asked for a condition. That a contract addendum be included in your contract. The addendum spoke of a shorter extension, with the possibility that he could leave the channel if he so desired after the 18month period expired in August 2021. Bonner was 57 at the time and, according to close friends at work, the presenter’s intention was to retire before he was 60.
According to sources in the channel’s contract management, Bonner wanted to move to Portugal and be closer to his son, who had just moved to Paris. At the time, Bonner also felt the pressure to be the station’s most important “political spokesman” after 35 years of service. “Loved by some, hated by others” were outbursts from fellow professionals that justified part of his intention to push through his retirement from Globo.
However, with the global spotlight shifting to the pandemic and the new political directions the country was facing, the Marinho family scrambled to extend Bonner’s contract yet again. The opening of the channel’s R$ 86 million box was approved in order to be able to keep the presenter. At that time, Globo addressed the importance of the moderator after the pandemic due to the journalistic coverage of the election campaign and the presidential election. The amount then made available to the moderator was R$1 million and R$800,000 monthly, totaling R$86 million for the moderator’s pocket in four years to 2025.
The column noted that after taking this new statement to the House, Bonner would not be persuaded to stay on the network for a fourth time until 2025. The moderator’s will is to leave office and retire Jornal Nacional between April and August 2023, safe in the knowledge that the channel is fully aware that the last negotiation conducted with him is the real reason for the journalistic coverage about this year’s presidential election.